


if you lose your way (i will leave a light on)

by EatingUptheBoredom



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: AU, Gen, I basically took that story, Inspired by a short story by Ursual K. Le Guin, SCIENCE!, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Villain!Tony, all the good parts are hers, and put tony and stephen in it, farm animals!, i just imangined it with Tony Stark, oh my!, sorcery!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2020-10-25 16:02:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20726921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EatingUptheBoredom/pseuds/EatingUptheBoredom
Summary: An AU where Tony goes rogue after Civil War, becoming the villain he'd been accused of being. None of the ex-Avengers can stop him and there's terrible loss on both sides. Dr. Strange is tasked with stopping Tony Stark, which he does, barely. Tony escaped and disappeared. Thanos happened, then the snap, with far heavier casualties without Tony taking the fight away from earth so things didn't unfold on Titan the way they did in Infinity War. Dr. Strange survives the blip this time since so many people died in battle, the ratios were altered.This is during the five years between the snap and what would have been the Reclamation of the Universehad things gone differently





	if you lose your way (i will leave a light on)

He was lost. 

The fact itself didn't alarm him, much. Things had changed so much since the Snap that nowhere was familiar, nowhere was where you thought it would be. Entire cities had risen, had fallen, had been abandoned, had been reclaimed. The lost state, the found, knowing where you were on a map or no, it didn't seem to matter.

But he was cold; that _was_ beginning to concern him. He'd been expecting to come across a town by now; several hours ago, actually. But his information might be off. Not many people came this way; the stories came from New York, the turf wars and the battles fought with technology. The mad scramble that governments had made to reestablish themselves, some seizing what they saw as an opportunity to expand their country. Some said there was a king in Canada, some said there was a president in what used to be France, a large gathering of people in what used to be Texas that called itself the New Republic that had arisen and stayed so far. It was hard to say. But no stories came from here. It was all forests and little towns, but he was looking for one in particular that was said to have the beginnings of a tech hub. Towns with technology were fairing far better than some without; access to information about medicine, about fixing things. If things were ever to get better they needed tech, but know-how was spread thin. Know-how was what he had.

It was cold, in the late evening of a Spring too long in coming, still dark, still still. The traveler stood at the crossroads of what used to be an intersection; an old stoplight still hanging, though just barely. Rust and dead. He looked both ways, but neither looked very promising, crumbling along into the darkness and winter wasteland of the forests that had crowded around here, unencumbered by any encroaching humanity for years now, years. Things grew green and fast, now. The ashes, feet deep in some places, enriched the soil, maybe, because things grew greener there. It was too close on the heels of winter for green things, now, though, all looked dark and grey in the half-light of the day sinking into darkness.

He let his eyes run over the dimmed landscape, mildly, looking for some sign of the way he should take, for it was clear he'd taken a wrong turn, somewhere. He turned left.

It was not silent; he could hear a stream nearby, the water murmuring somewhere. He'd used up his shoes walking and walking over the cruel and broken roads that had once been paved highways but now jagged and unforgiving chunks of concrete that served only to hinder his way. The soles were worn straight through and his feet ached with the icy damp of the grassy path on the side of the once-road. A decrepit fence spanned the way; a good sign, maybe, that there could be a house nearby and maybe a town. The wind kicked sullenly through the growth of bushes, trees, and grass, making a restless rushing sound, a shushing sound, and as the traveler moved he could sense something big and black in the darkness.

"Are you there, dear?" he asked of the dark. His voice sounded strange in the infinite noise of the chaotic nature. It gave him an odd moment where he felt like the only human on earth. He didn't feel afraid of the dark shape in front of him; there were few things on earth, at all, that he feared.

His fear would have been unfounded in this case; a large dog, some kind of mastiff breed, rumbled out of the tall, wet grass. He could have taken the animal for a stray but it was lean, not skinny, and a glimpse of a colored collar around her neck, mostly obscured by black fur, confirmed his suspicion. The traveler kneeled down and the lumbering animal came over immediately, sniffing at him interestedly. He could see now one of the animal's eyes were milky white and there were flecks of grey around her muzzle. He ruffled her ears. "Hello there. Did I find you or did you find me, I wonder?"

The dog turned and the traveler followed as she walked slowly but purposefully through the darkened wilderness, a small path he hadn't seen but she apparently knew well. He went with her, a hand on her hip, his fingers curling through the soft curls. She waded through a knee-deep stream, swift-moving, and nearly his feet went out from under him and whether it was on purpose or not the dog angled her body to take the brunt of the water flow and it was an awkward and slippery moment to get out on the opposite bank. He was shivering now, chilled deeply, his feet aching from cold and the rocks. 

"Boof," his guide, softly, and he saw the dim, small square of yellow light just to his left. She took off toward the house, leaving the traveler well behind as he had to pick his way, limping now and cold.

He watched the dog turn to a barn, no doubt having food and water, warmth and a dry place to sleep. "Thank you," he said, opening the gate to the front walk, stumbling.

...

It shouldn't be Henry, not expecting him back till late, late but he must have come back early she thought, and why he's knocking like an idiot she couldn't fathom. "Come it, dummy!" she called, irritated. He knocked again and she put down her book and went to the door.

"Are you drunk already?" she said and then saw him.

The first thing she thought was a king, a lord, Aragorn out of the fairy tales, tall, straight, beautiful. The next thing she thought was a beggar, a lost man, in dirty clothes, hugging himself with shivering arms. 

"I've lost my way," he told her, dripping wet and mist from his mouth as he spoke. "Have I come to the town?"

"It's a half-mile on," said Hope. 

"Is there an inn? A hotel?” She one then he’d traveled from a bigger city, hotels in most towns has been shuttered years ago to conserve electricity, water.

"Of sorts... they do have a restaurant with lodgings upstairs, only a few rooms. No hotel for twelve more miles east, when you come to where the university had been." The world boasted a new, large population of itinerate people, who had lost homes and families and never did settle down. Even small towns had some accommodations for such folks, but not many came here so there was limited options. 

"Where was this?"

She knew he meant before the apocalypse, the End. "Escondido." She considered. "If you need a place to stay, you can stay the night. Or go to Liv's restaurant."

"I'll stay here, if I may," and she heard the king, though his teeth were chattering, holding the doorjamb to keep his feet.

"You'd better... take your shoes off. Come in, then." She stood aside, ushering him close to the fire. "Food? Do you need food? It's still hot."

"Thank you," he murmured, sitting in a chair and extending his hands towards the warmth and light. His fingers were long, elegant, but certainly used to work, she could see that. Well, they all were now. She brought him soup from the stove where it was being kept warm for Henry, and some bread. He drank it eagerly yet warily as if it had been a long time since he drank hot soup. She fussed around the kitchen while he ate very slowly.

"You came over the mountain?" 

He nodded.

"Why?" 

"To come to here," he said. He wasn't shaking so much. His bare feet were a sad sight, bruised, swollen, sodden. 

"Not many come to here. In the winter. Travelers in the summer, sometimes." She took his empty bowl when he finished his soup and sat down on the low, soft couch and picked up her book. "Get warm through, and I'll show you to your bed."

She knew enough to be wary, but he did not concern her, overly. The Snap, The Desolation, The Ending. When half the world turned to dust and ashes. It had both closed and opened people up. There was a drawing together; especially at first when there was no food, no water. No one making electricity, no one processing the water. It took time for those things, it was nearly eight months before it was back consistently and technology was the prized and scarce resource even as people went back to more basic modalities of living. The US was lucky; for the most part, good people had taken over leadership and made sure that utilities and basic life-sustaining resources were reinstated as soon as possible. But there were no bankers, now; no Wall Street. The world's electronic wealth evaporated with that same cruel snap, in its entirety. People had cash now, and scarce as it was, it was valuable. She didn't have anything like that. She had her farm and she traded and sold goods in town. He had no reason to harm her. 

People didn't harm each other, much, not these days, three years past the End. What was there left to gain from it? After the half had gone, more had followed in the crash, and there had been suicides from folks who'd lost everyone and everything. She'd thought about it; sure she had. She'd lost her dad, and her cousin. Never married, never children and now what was the point? But instead she and her brother had settled in. They worked the farm, a small garden and the animals. It was a simple life, she'd once been more, and known things and done things that were considered important at the time but all that was gone and done. She kept the animals and her little farm.

"Was there weather?"

"A bit of snow. Flurries."

"I wondered."

She got a good look at him. Not young, thin; gray-streaked through his dark hair on his head and in his beard, but that didn't mean much. Half the twenty-year-olds had gray hair. Not as tall as she had thought. It was a fine face, but she thought something seemed wrong, something seemed amiss. He's ruined, she thought. A ruined man. 

"Why would you come here?" she asked. She hated to pry, it was rude, but she wanted to know and had the right, having taken him in. There were plenty of people who wandered around, never settled after the End, always looking for a different or better life somewhere.

"I was told there was a some tech. Some computers and networks they were trying to get working." Now that his voice wasn't all rough with cold, it was a nice voice.

"You know tech?"

"I think so. I can help with any mechanical engineering."

"You're a technician?" A catch-all title given to anyone that knew anything about the nearly extinct knowledge of a once vast field involving everything from coding to hardware to software and mechanics. He nodded. "Then you'd be welcome. More than welcome. They do what they can but someone with know-how would help a lot."

He didn't say anything. 

"Put your feet to the fire," she said abruptly. "You can have my dad's boots."

It cost her something to say it, but when she did she felt better. Why had she kept them anyway? They didn't fit Henry. For this man, she supposed. Things had a way of coming around, the need and the way to fulfill it, sometimes one first sometimes the other.

He glanced at her. His dark eyes were opaque like a horse, unreadable. 

"He's dead. My dad. He died in the Desolation. I live with my brother. He's at the bar. We keep the farm, some sheep and an orchard and some fields."

"I met the dog," he said and sounded sleepy. 

"Old Jenny. I'm Hope."

"Edward," he said after a pause, and she thought it was a name he made up to call himself. It didn't quite fit, but nothing seemed to fit about him, nothing whole. But she wasn't afraid of him and she didn't distrust him. She was easy with him. He meant her no harm. She thought there was kindness in him, the way he'd mentioned Jenny. He was like one of the animals, silent and damaged that needed protection. 

"Come on, before you fall asleep there." He followed her obediently. There were only two rooms, she would let Henry sleep on the couch in the front room. Let the traveler have a good night's sleep. Maybe he'd even have money, real money he'd leave when he went on. She hadn't had real money in weeks.

...

He woke, as he always did, in the Lab. He didn't understand why the ceiling was low and the air smelled like breakfast cooking and there was the sound of a rooster crowing and a dog barking. It took a while, a meandering awareness of who he was now and where, but he couldn't remember the name he'd given her to call him. He knew his real name but it was no good here, this place, where it was. Or anywhere. The place he'd come from a long walk in cold weather in high places and through water, and the place on the hill where he could only see the stars and no manmade light at all. 

The dog had led him here and Hope had opened the door. He recognized her even though she did not recognize him. It had been that way since the accident, the fight but there was an accident, he didn't know why; whatever had caused it had broke him, scattered his mind and thoughts that he found difficult to gather in for any length of time. But he knew people, he knew them all, which ones to be afraid of, who would do harm, and which ones meant no harm. Hope meant no harm. He thought he could understand why and how he knew if he could only think of it, but he couldn't. He wanted to fix the computers, he wanted to help the machines.

His leg hurt, and his feet. His chest, but that was always, the legs and feet that was just lately. The bed was soft, and warm. It felt good, the warmth, and he felt it and drowsed a bit, drifted half-awake on the warmth and sounds of the farm, drifting away from Tony and the Lab.

He got up at last, and the dog he'd met, Jenny, was on the floor and she thumped her tail without raising her head. He looking down at his hands and wondered how old he was. He felt old, very old, but his hands did not seem it. Maybe only middle-aged. He could only move like he was old; maybe the hands were wrong, he winced as he put weight on his feet. He pulled his clothes on from the day before, not enjoying the foul smell from days of travel, still cool damp from the soaking he'd gotten, uncomfortable. All but the shoes, a good pair, he thought, and some thick warm socks with them, knitted. He put on just the socks and limped to the kitchen and Jenny lumbered to her feet and went before him like she had before. Hope stood at the stove, stirring some batter of some kind.

"Thank you for these and the shoes," he said. 

"You're welcome," she said and wiped her hands on her apron. 

He knew nothing at all about women. He hadn't lived with one in years, and she had been different from any other woman he'd met. But he found women mostly easy to be with, like computers or machines, they went about their business and didn't pay him any attention unless he frightened them. The women not the machines. He tried not to do that. He had no wish or reason to frighten them. They were not men.

"Would you like oatmeal?" She sized him up, like a cat, not challenging. There was a cat, all orange stripes but one white sock on it's left front paw. It saw her pour milk on the oatmeal and jumped beside him, purring.

"Look at that. She don't like most folks."

"It's the milk."

"She knows someone handy, maybe." He petted her, a pretty cat. It was a good house. 

"It's cold, will you be going on?"

There was a long pause. He forgot he must answer in words. "I'd stay if I might," he said. "I'd stay here."

He saw her smile, but also hesitate. "Well, you're welcome, sir, but I have to ask, can you pay a little?"

"Oh, yes," he said, confused, and got up and limped back to his bedroom for the small messenger bag he carried. He brought her money, a hundred dollar bill. 

"Just for the food and the fire, you know," she was saying then looked at what he offered her.

"Oh, sir," she said and he knew he'd done something wrong. 

"There's nobody could change that," she said. She looked up into his face for a moment. "The whole town together couldn't change that!" she said and laughed so it was all right, then, though the word "change" echoed in his mind, again and again.

"It hasn't been changed," he said, but he knew that's not what she meant. "I'm sorry. If I stayed a month, the winter, would that use it up?"

"Put it away," she told him, flittering a hand. "The men will pay you if you fix their computers then you can pay me. But put it away!" After the collapse, after The End, money had taken a steep dive in value and then a precipitous incline. They said the dollar's value equaled somewhere what it did 150 years ago in the 1860s, somewhere around what $30 had been worth, and most folks only kept some change and some of the very wealthy would have twenty dollars cash in the bank but they no longer kept track of such things electronically. Debit cards, credit cards, even checks were a thing of the ancient past even though they were common five years ago. People paid for goods in coins, even pennies. He didn't know much about that.

"Henry!" A soft-faced man, middle-aged, eyes dim and cheeks scruffy, came in the door with a burst of cold air. "This man will stay with us while he's fixing the computers for the owners in town. You'll sleep on the couch like last night and give him the room. This is my brother Henry, sir."

Henry ducked his head and muttered, shifting his weight. His eyes were dull, but it wasn't strange. Many people had never fully recovered. They didn't come back to themselves after half the world disappeared. Henry went out again and Jenny went with him, off to work.

"No harm in him but the drink, but that's all that left in him since his wife is gone, in a car accident. It was hard for him that she survived The End but died like that, when another car's driver was dusted. He had to come live with me here. So, you see, put up your money where he can't see it, if you don't mind. He won't go looking for it. But if he saw it, he'd take it. He doesn't always know what he's doing when he's drinking, you see."

"Yes," Tony said. "I understand. You are a kind woman." She was talking about him, about his not knowing what he was doing. She was forgiving him. "A kind sister," he said. The words were so new to him, words he had never said or thought before he had spoken them. She only shrugged with a frowning smile.

He had not known how tired he was until he had rest there. He spent all day dozing before the fire with the orange cat while Hope went in and out at her work, offering him food several times-- poor, coarse food, but he ate it all, slowly, valuing it. Evening came cold and dark early and the brother went off and she said with a sigh, "He'll run up a whole new line of credit at the bar on the strength of us having a lodger. Not that it's your fault."

"Oh, yes," Tony said. "It was my fault." But she forgave; and the orange cat pressed against his thigh dreaming. There was no fault, only the great innocence. No need for words. They would not find him here. He was not here to find. There was no need to speak any name. There was nobody here but her, and the cat dreaming, and the fire flickering. 

...

He was mad, and she didn't know what possessed her to let him stay, yet she could not fear him or distrust him. What did it matter if he was mad? Lots of people were, these days, he just didn't hide it at all. He was gentle, and might have been a great man once, before what happened to him happened. And he wasn't so mad as all that. Mad in patches, mad at moments. Nothing in him was whole, not even his madness. He couldn't remember the name he'd told her, and told the people in town to call him James. He didn't remember her name either, maybe, he called her ma'am and she called him sir, most of the time, since Edward and James didn't seem to fit him. Nothing fit him. He didn't fit. 

She had thought maybe his talk of coming here to fix the tech was one of the mad bits. He did not act like any of the technicians that came through. But after he had rested a couple of days he asked her who owned the tech in town and went off, still walking sore-footed, in her father's old shoes. It made her heart turn in her, seeing that.

He came back that evening lamer than ever for of course Scott Jensen had walked him all over the building where the equipment was. She thought to ask him if he wanted a bath, which he did, of course he did, he hadn't asked. When she went into the bathroom after it was all cleaned up and the floor dried and the towels hung and Henry nor her father had looked after things like that, and who would have expected it of a rich man? Wouldn't he have servants where he came from? He was no more trouble than the cat.

He washed his own clothes, even his bedsheet; the dryer had died a year ago with no company in business to replace it so it stayed in its spot, not working, in case a peddler came through who could keep a lookout for a replacement part. One of the neighbors had looked at it but said the heating element had gone bad and there was no fixing that. But she found it tumbling his clothes and sheets when she came in in the afternoon. 

"You didn't have to do that!" she faltered. "I mean, I could have cleaned the sheets for you with my things. And the dryer--"

"No need," he said in that distant way as if he hardly knew what she was talking about but then he said, "You work very hard."

"Who doesn't?" She smiled and flexed her arm. She was proud of her strength and independence, how her work made her strong. "Not bad for a fifty-year-old!"

"Not bad," he said gravely. 

He was good with the animals, the goats and the cows and when she needed a hand he helped her when Henry was in the fields or the orchards. Hope thought it seemed like when he talked to the animals they understood him, considering what he said. Jenny followed him around like a puppy, forsaking Henry and even Hope. There was no denying he had a rare gift with the machines. All the equipment that had fallen out of use from disrepair he fixed in the evenings in a trice, like it was nothing, like engines and moving parts and machinery came easy to him as breathing.

Whatever he was doing with the tech, the technicians seemed to think well of him. Of course they would grab at any promise of help. The internet, the computers, the tech were by far the most valuable resource on earth. The information, getting things productive and working again, that's all anyone was trying to do but with half the population gone there was all that knowledge and it didn't take long to understand that without people to run the servers and service the equipment and understand the coding, it would not last long. There were pockets of tech, of progress, but with all the schools blasted back to the dark ages, folks had to start from scratch learning from libraries and what folks who knew could teach them, called them interns. There were truly knowledgeable folks but they didn't come this way. They were in the big new cities, making progress. One day one of the Interns from the town came to get him.

"Dr. Mayhew says Mr. James can work on the servers today," the young man said. The doctors were bright men, or had been before none of it meant anything. But they had taken to building an infrastructure based on tech for the town, with hopes of getting telephones working again, digitalizing some of the processes they way they used to be, retrieving information swallowed in the black hole of the entire internet going down. Bits of it were out there, somewhere, if there were folks to retrieve it, and that's part of what they were doing.

Her guest came out of the house. it was a bright, misty morning. The traveler said nothing to him but went to his car, one of the few in town since not many folks could afford the gas or maintenance and didn't go far distances as they had ten years ago. Without saying anything he reached in and popped the hood, staring at the engine as it ran, murmuring something and reaching in to fiddle with it. 

"He does that," the young man chuckled. "Talks to the machines." He was amused, disdainful. He was one of Henry's drinking buddies, a decent enough young fellow, for a techie.

"Is he fixing the computers?"

"Well he can't fix the things wrong all at once. He does some coding, some work on hardware. But seems like he's making things go smoother, faster. And the ones not broken yet, he says he can help keep from crashing. So the doctor is sending him all around the network to do what can be done."

He'd done something and a rattling sound deep in the engine stopped and he revved the engine, now running smooth and clean and he smiled. Hope had never seen him smile. "Shall we go?" he said to the intern, getting in the passenger seat. 

Hope watched them down the broken road and thought it was like seeing a hero ride off, like something out of a story, and kept her eye on them as they faded into the light and were gone.

...

It was hard work working on the tech, the machines. They had driven him to another building, once in a city now mostly abandoned but there had once been a thriving tech company there and the tech was still intact but not working. The bones. The equipment, but cold and dead. He had a long way to go to bring them life, functioning, light and information and ability to help mankind. The owners had sent two interns with him but they didn't like the slow process and got impatient. It was strange to him they had no patience with the computers, which they handled like things, roughly, like logs in a river, by mere force. They had no patience with him either, always at him to hurry up and get done with the job; nor with themselves, their life. When they talked to each other it was always about what they were going to do in town, or go to one of the cities, when they got paid off. He stayed with them because they knew the equipment and passwords but they did not want him there and he did not want to be there with them. In them he knew there was a vague fear of him, and a jealousy of him, but above all contempt. He was old, other, not one of them. Fear and jealousy he knew and shrank from, and contempt he remembered. He was glad he was not one of them, that they did not want to talk to him. He was afraid of doing wrong to them. They had an innocent kind of reckless agression, but did not know him, how he was, how he would not allow harm.

He slept on a couch in one of the offices but there was no heat to keep the servers cool. The computers hummed and worked and provided light and warmth. He woke when it was still dark and the interns were asleep. He went to the computers. The problems in them were very familiar to him now. He worked on them steadily, talking to himself and to them. He had created an AI, just a little one.

"Ride back," he told the interns. "Leave me here. There's enough food for one man for three days. I'll take the second car back."

They needed no persuasion. They drove off, leaving everything behind, their blankets, supplies. He looked at the computer, the AI waiting for his direction. "We have to finish work here," he told her and she looked at him mildly from the camera lens. He could see how she saw him on the little pop-up screen-- Admin. He appreciated her collusion. In order for her to truly help him, he gave her the ability to choose, to study choices and made decisions, and her help was freely given. Like a little princess, she agreed to help. He remembered being among the armors, the cold and hard strength, the comfort of their abilities and intelligence. A long time ago now. 

It took him six more days to get through the large network at the lonely building, even with her help (he named her Princess). The last two days he spent building a protection, so that no one could use these computers to harm, to build weapons, to destroy. He safeguarded them from viruses he knew would eventually be developed, but not used here, not against them. He left the little Princess, but she wouldn't be alone. He would be able to talk to her. But there was nothing left for him to eat, and he did not want to ask the people in town for food when he had no money.

When he drove back to the town he was light-headed and weak-kneed. He took a long time getting home from town to Hope's farm. She greeted him and scolded him and tried to make him eat, but he explained he could not eat yet. 

"When I'm working like that, my brain takes over and my body can't eat. After a while I'll be able to eat again," he explained. 

"You're crazy," she said, very angry. It was a sweet anger. Why could not more anger be sweet? "At least have a bath!" He thanked her. 

"What are the owners paying you for all this? Dr. Mayhew, Dr. Jensen?" she demanded while the bath was filling with hot water. She was still indignant, speaking more bluntly even than usual. 

"I don't know," he said.

She stopped and stared at him. 

"You didn't set a price?"

"Set a price?" he flashed out. Then he remembered who he was not and spoke humbly. "No. I didn't."

"Of all the innocence," Hope said, hissing the word. "They'll skin you." She fetched a fresh bar of soap and washcloth. "They have money. Tell them it has to be money. Bills. Out there starving in the cold to fix their networks. I'm sorry if I'm meddling in your business. Sir." She flung out the door. She was wise, and kind. Why had he lived so long among those who were not kind?

"We'll have to see," Dr. Mayhew said, the next day. "If the computers keep working a while, we'll know your fixes worked. Not that I doubt it, but fair's fair, right? You wouldn't want me to pay you everything I will pay you if it doesn't work, if it fails once we get it all running at once, right? But I won't ask you to go unpaid, either. So here's an advance, like, on what's to come, and all is square between us for now, right?" 

He gave him two dollars in change, not even decently in a bag. Tony had to hold out his hand and the owner, who had a doctorate in business and had once upon a time ran a fortune 500 company, laid out the quarters and dimes in it, one by one. "There! Now maybe you can look at some of my servers in Long Beach."

"No," Tony said. "Mr. Record's machines were failing when I left. I'm needed there." One of the other men in town who had salvaged what tech he could, was trying to put it to use but it kept failing. He also owned the restaurant with his wife, Liv.

"Oh no you're not, Mr. James! While you were out in the server building, another technician came from the college that's been here before, from the city. They say he has a hand with tech, like powers, and Mr. Record hired him. You work for me and you'll be paid well. Better than coins, maybe, if the firewall holds up as you promised!" Tony's ear caught on the word _powers,_ it's what most people called enhanced individuals. There had been laws, the Accords, but all that was broken and gone one of many casualties and what few enhanced people were left were either feared and rejected or powerful pawns used in plays for dominance, power. And a few were like him, living normal lives, trying to earn money off their gifts.

Tony didn't say yes or no but went off unspeaking. Dr. Mayhew shrugged and left.

The trouble rose in Tony's mind as it had not done since he came to Hope's door. He struggled against it. A technician had come to fix some computers, that was it. People said they had power, were enhanced, even when they weren't. It could be only a talented technician._ I do not need to fear him. I do not need to fear his power,_ he said remembering many fights he'd been in, the shield falling hard against his sternum, he had thought him harmless too._ I must see him to be sure, to be certain. If he does what I do there is no harm. If I do what he does here. If he fixes computers and means no harm. As I do._

He walked down the straggling street to Mr. Record's building, several blocks away and across from the bar. He saw Mr. Record talking to a man in the doorway of the building and when they saw Tony they went inside. Tony went to the door and called in. "Mr. Record, it's about the servers. I can go to them today." He did not know why he said this. It was not what he meant to say.

"Ah," said Mr. Record coming to the door and hemmed a bit. "No need Mr. James. This is Jeremy, from the college, come up to deal with the server outage. He's worked on software for me before. You've been so busy with Dr. Mayhew and Jensen and all..."

The technician came out from behind Mr. Record. Jeremy. Tony knew that he was not a good man; he could work machines but he was small, tainted, corrupted by ignorance and misuse and lying. But the jealousy in him was like a stinging fire. "I've been doing business here since The End," he said looking Tony up and down, and Tony knew him, knew he'd worked for Hammer. All that time ago. "You can't walk in here and take my business. Some people would quarrel with that."

Tony tried to say he didn't want a quarrel. He tried to say that there was work for two. He tried to say he would not take the man's work from him. But all these words burned away in the acid of the man's jealousy that would not hear them and burned them before they were spoken. 

Jeremy's stare grew more insolent as he watched Tony stammer. He began to say something to Mr. Record but Tony spoke.

"You have--" he said-- " you have to go. Back." As he said "back," his left hand struck down on the man's forearm and the man stumbled at the blow, staring.

He was only a little man, cheating technician, with a few sorry codes. Or so he seemed. What if he was cheating, hiding his power, a rival hiding his power? A jealous rival. He must be stopped, he must be bound. Tony reached for his chest where the nanotech arc reactor lay hidden, he tapped it twice to call forth the power he knew could stop him, and the shaken man cowered away, shrinking down, shriveling. 

_It is wrong, I am wrong, I am the ill,_ Tony thought. He stopped midmotion and the nanotech shimmered and retracted. Mr. Record had pushed Tony back by the shoulder, out the door. No harm was done. But Tony's hands seemed like they were on fire, like the repulsors were active, they burned his eyes when he tried to hide his eyes in his hands, burned his tongue when he tried to speak.

... 

For a long time no one would touch him. He had passed out in Mr. Record's doorway. People talked about he attacked, how he was aggressive, striking out suddenly like a snake. A terrible thing. Jeremy told them to get rid of him but didn't stick around to see them do it. He went back down the south road as soon as he'd gulped a pint of beer in the bar, telling them there was no room for two technicians and he'd be back, maybe, when that man was gone.

Henry went and fetched his sister after he'd heard Jeremy's tale at the bar and Mr. Record's version of it, and several other versions already current. In the best of them, James had towered up ten feet tall and used some kind of martial arts and started glowing very unnatural before foaming at the mouth and turning blue and collapsing in a heap. 

Hope hurried to the town. She went straight up the doorstep, bent over the heap, and laid her hand on it. A few people muttered. The heap moved and roused up slowly. They saw it was just the traveler, the technician, just as he had been no shimmering, no martial artistry, though looking very ill. 

"Come on," Hope said, and got him on his feet and walked slowly up the street with him. 

The townsfolk shook their heads. Hope was a brave woman, but there was such thing as being too brave. Or brave in the wrong way, or the wrong place. There were powered people, it was clear he was that though they hadn't known it. They knew something was wrong, now they understood. They aren't like other people. Seems there's no harm in that technician, but cross him and there you are, shimmering and fighting and falling down in fits. Strange. Always was strange, that one. Where'd he come from, anyhow. Answer me that.

...

She got him in bed and pulled the shoes off his feet and left him sleeping. Henry came in drunker than usual, raging, and ordered her to kick the traveler out, right away, kick 'im out. Then he threw up in the fireplace and fell asleep on the couch. She pulled his shoes off his feet and left him sleeping, too. She went to the other one. He looked feverish and she put her hand to his forehead. He opened his eyes, looked straight into hers without expression. "Hope," he said and closed his eyes again. The first time he'd called her since he came. It was always ma'am. 

He said her name. She gave him sleep. 

...

He slept until late in the morning and woke as if from illness, weak and placid. She was unable to be afraid of him. She found he had no memory at all of what had happened in town, or the other technician, even the coins she'd found scattered on his sheets which he must have held clenched in his hand all along. 

"No doubt that's what the owners paid you," she said. "The flints!"

"I said I'd see to his computers," Tony said, getting anxious, the hunted look coming back to him. He stood up. 

"Sit down," she said. He sat down but he fretted. 

"You're sick. How can you fix anything when you're sick and hurt?" 

"How else?" he said. 

But he quieted down again presently, stroking Jenny who rested her large head on his knee. Henry came in and asked to speak with her outside. 

"I won't have him here anymore." 

"Where will you go?"

"It's him that's got to go!"

"It's my house. Dad gave it to me. He stays. Go or stay, you choose."

"It's up to me too. If he stays or goes, and he goes. All the people say he's strange. Like one of the inhumans. Or an alien."

"Oh, yes, since he fixed the networks and got paid two dollars, time for him to go! I'll have him as long as I choose and that's the end of it." 

"They won't buy our produce." 

"Says who?!"

"Mrs. Record, Liv. The women." 

"I'll carry it to the city!" she said. "And sell them there. Go take a shower, Henry, you stink!"

She came in and burst into tears. "Oh dear!" 

"What's the matter Hope?" the technician said, turning his large brown eyes to her, his eyelashes thick as with tears but they were always like that. 

"It's nothing, nothing is ever any good with a drunkard. Is that what happened to you? Is that what broke you?"

"No," he said, taking no offense, perhaps not understanding.

"Of course not. I beg your pardon."

"Maybe he drinks to be another man," he said.

"He drinks because he drinks," she said. "For some, that's all. I'll be out with the animals. You rest. I'll lock the door, there's been... there's been strangers around. Just rest. It's bitter out." She wanted to be sure he'd stay indoors where no one would harass him, where he'd be out of harm's way. Later she'd go into town, have a talk with some of the sensible people, put an end to the foolish talk, if she could. 

When she did there were some who agreed there was nothing to fuss over. But Liv and some others, they were afraid of his strange reaction, that he might be powered or an alien, a villain, someone who had been in league with Thanos or some such nonsense. But Hope thought that kind of talk would die down. Her friend disagreed.

"He's different and you know it. Maybe he is powered. The way he was with the computers, it wasn't natural. It didn't seem human. Whoever he is he's none of our business but why did he come here, is what you have to ask."

"To fix the computers," Hope said.

...

Jeremy had not been gone three days when a new stranger appeared-- a man walking up the south road and asking at the bar for lodgings. They sent him to Mr. Record's house but when Liv saw him she screeched she didn't need any more strange or uncanny men around and screaming so loud she could be heard on the street.

"Well that won't do," the stranger said pleasantly. "I can't be causing a ruckus. Is there maybe a room above the bar?"

"Send him to the farm," said one of the interns. "Hope's taking in whatever comes." There was some sniggering and some shushing. 

"Back that way," said the barman. 

"Thanks," said the traveler and walked toward where they pointed. 

...

Hope was in the barn having finished the evening milking. She was setting it out in pans. "Ma'am," said a voice at the door and she thought it was the technician and said, "Just a minute while I finish this," and then turned and saw a stranger and nearly dropped the pan.

"Oh, you startled me!" she said. "What can I do for you?"

"I'm looking for a bed for the night."

"No, I'm sorry, there's a lodger and my brother and me. Maybe at Record's, in town--"

"They sent me here." The stranger looked to be in his forties but with stark white hair, with a pleasant, clean look, dressed plain but with a red cloak that seemed odd but she'd seen worse. "Put me in the cow barn, ma'am, it will do fine. I'll sleep in the barn and be off in the morning. I'll be glad to pay you, if a dollar would suit, and my name's Stephen."

"I'm Hope," she said, a bit flustered, but liking him. He looked kind, a deep trouble in his eyes as if he'd seen sorrow. It wasn't often that men with eyes like that were cruel. "All right then. Go on in the house first, I can give you some dinner, and a quarter will be more than enough, thank you."

She finished up the animals and when she went to the house found Stephen skillfully making up the fire. The technician was asleep in his room. She looked in and closed the door.

"He's not too well," she said, speaking low. "He was working on the computers for days on end out east in the cold and wore himself out."

As she went about the work in the kitchen, Stephen lent her a hand now and then in the most natural way. He was easy to talk with and she told him about the technician since there was nothing much to say about herself. "They'll use him and then bad-mouth him for his usefulness," she said. "It's not right."

"But he scared them somehow, did he?"

"I guess he did. Some other fellow making threats, doesn't amount to much. They were talking about jobs, maybe lost their tempers. He might have hit someone. He tapped his chest they told me and seemed to shimmer. He did no harm to the man at all, but fainted himself! And now he doesn't remember any more about it, while the other man walked away unhurt. And all the machines he touched and fixed, they're working still just fine and you know how the networks fail. It could be he's different--" she checked herself and then went on, "I don't say he's not a bit strange sometimes. The way Inhumans are sometimes, I guess. Maybe they have to be, dealing with such powers and evils as they do. But he's a true man, and kind."

"Ma'am, may I tell you a story?"

"What, like an old-timey bard?" she laughed.

He smiled but looked serious and she gave a nod to tell him to continue. "I'm no bard but I do have a story for you. You may already know some parts of it. In New York, before The End, there were six remarkable people. They were brought together even though they were different from others, and different from each other, to fight the battles we couldn't."

Hope sighed, leaning back. They had all been depending on the heroes but they had all fallen. There are many ways to fall, many ways to lose your way. 

"Before one of these Avengers was a remarkable man, he was quite a remarkable boy. He was brought up to wealth and privilege. His father was hard to him but taught him well. But he was a sensitive, lonely child, for all that he'd been given in life, and grew up to be a solitary man, though he earned the reputation of being a playboy. All that changed when he was a young man making a business proposal. He, and the people he was with, were ambushed and he was harmed by one of the very weapons he created to protect and defend his country. A man who was captured with him saved his life by putting an electromagnet in his chest-- an arc reactor."

"I know this story. I don't like it. It has a sad ending."

"We aren't to the ending. And maybe you don't know it as well as you think. Do you want me to tell it to you?"

"Go on."

"That sensitive little boy grew up to be Iron Man. Iron Man was brave and selfless and strong and kind... he was many things. But he was still lonely. He tried to make a family, but a family isn't something you make by force, it's something built, that grows on love and trust and kindness and goodness, and those were hard things to come by. There were times of light, and vanquishing darkness. Things were good and Iron Man did the things he always wanted-- he saved and he helped and he had love and laughter in his life. But there were dark times. too. At times, though he was well-meaning, there was harm done by his actions."

"Ultron."

"Ultron was bigger and deeper than Iron Man. What called him into existence was something ancient and deeper than we all knew, but Iron Man did get the blame though he was not to blame. But the blame did its work, and now he was ashamed. His shame made him see things differently, maybe not correctly, and there was now something between the six of them. It would be there undoing."

"What was it?"

"Two things, in the end. One was grief. There had been a woman... I never met her. Perhaps if she had survived, but she died of a terrible disease given to her by one of Tony's enemies, Killian. Extremis. She had died and I think much of the love his heart was capable of. This sensitive man who had had his body broken in every way possible never learned how to live with the pain of it. The other thing was more insidious, distrust. Distrust and betrayal are underestimated in their destructive powers, especially on a man who is fundamentally honest and loyal. You see there was another remarkable man, Steve Rogers, didn't believe he could trust this man, but Iron Man trusted him and that trust was broken. When it was, Iron Man was broken. Before he could recover, that lonely and sensitive boy found out that his parents had not died in a car accident, but were murdered. And the people who should have trusted him and told him did not tell him, and did not protect him. Iron Man became bitter, and angry."

"This is the part I don't like. When he broke his faith with the Accords and went rogue, away from all the other ex-Avengers. And Vision and James Rhodes had to try and stop him but could not."

"There are not many people on earth or in the universe who could have stopped him. But I was tasked to do so. People were harmed. Iron Man was a threat."

"Some people don't think so." The tumult of that time compared to now was small, but it made an indelible mark. The public and graphic destruction of the Avengers, not by an outside enemy but at the hands of each other had been a large part of the anger and grief later, when they weren't able to stop Thanos. There were people who blamed the heroes for failing, blamed Iron Man or Captain America and some blamed them all together. Hulk and Thor had disappeared, where had they gone only to come back to fail, all that time later with Thanos, who were they to fail their hope? Not knowing who was your hero and who was your enemy, an enemy of the people, had been confusing and terrifying, back when they thought they understood terror.

He nodded, serious. "Some people are so badly harmed that they don't know or see what they're doing can harm others. Iron Man didn't try to hurt anyone when he divorced himself from SHIELD and went after Steve Rogers for revenge, and because he believed Steve Rogers to be a bad and dangerous person. When James Barnes was killed in the firefight, there were many who thought the world was a bit safer for it, since he had been able to be triggered to be the Winter Soldier."

"But others thought he was innocent."

"They did. You remember that the Wakandans took exception to that death. Since no one could stop him they thought they should. There were more fights, the Iron Legion seemed unbeatable. Even their superior tech could not stop him. It seemed that no one could. Two of his once allies refused to try, Vision and James Rhodes. Vision came to me to ask that I do what he did not have the heart to.

"Iron Man came to despise what he'd once treasured, and hate those he once tried to protect. He was angry. He felt betrayed. He was dangerous. I was new to the business of being Sorcerer Supreme then and younger than the man I fought and maybe not afraid enough of him. It was all I could do alone to hold my own against him. It was a brief but difficult fight. Then it was over. He was broke. Like a stick breaking. He was broken. In body and spirit but he fled away. I spent a good portion of my strength, maybe permanently, overcoming that blind will, for you have to understand it wasn't just a battle of magic and tech, but minds, spirits, heart and soul. I didn't have strength in me to stop him when he fled, nor the wits to send anyone after him. Not a shred of power left in me to follow him. So he got clean away. Clean gone."

"Iron Man fought you," she murmured, for no word of that battled at reached their ears, even then, when everyone seemed to know everything all the time. People had said Iron Man died, had said Steve Rogers killed him or he had fled like a coward. "You say it was a difficult battle?" because she'd dared to let the Sorcerer Supreme who had fought Thanos and lived into her home and now there was this tale of him fighting Iron Man.

"When Iron Man bent his will to destruction, even I was hard-pressed to stop him," he agreed. "I had not thought to use the time stone on a man, just a man, and had underestimated him. I thought to use it just in time, but it is not a stone that is well used as a weapon. Instead of injuring him, it ruined his mind, the possibilities for good that he could see but not partake because of his anger and destruction. It had effects I had not intended that I do not understand, his brilliant mind altered. He seemed to know everything and yet nothing, as if he were simple, but he was not and he was stripped of all he was except his name, Tony Stark. We both fell, unable to move or fight any more and then he dragged himself to his feet and left. That's how I won, if won you could call it.

"This is not a bard's tale. It's not one you will hear anyone else tell," he continued. Indeed, the speculation on where Iron Man had gone was forgotten when bigger battles and enemies came upon earth except when people said if he was alive he would have come when Thanos became a threat, so he must be dead, another grief among many others. "Thanos came," and there was that deep, dark timbre in his voice as if he were in battle and darkness somewhere within him still to that day.

"Steve Rogers was killed, a hero's death. And Wanda, and Vision. Then Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff and Peter Parker died in the End. James Rhodes lived, only to die by his own hand. Thor lived and left, and Bruce Banner lives but no one knows where. It was said that you died, giving your life to try and protect the Time Stone. Most people think you dead, Dr. Strange."

He nodded. "I looked into the future and saw no way to win against him, no way left to us. He would have killed all life on earth to the last man and woman standing to get that stone, and we were powerless against him because he had all the others. I tried to die to protect the stone with the spell my death would seal, but with the other stones..." he shook his head. "He was able to get the Time Stone. He forced me to live. Had I died he would have lost the stone, perhaps forever, and many times I have bitterly hated him for forcing my life. An irony, don't you think? When there are so many we wish had lived. But even without the Stone, I have promises I have made I must keep."

Hope bowed her head. Like others, she had watched the battle with Thanos and his armies on the television. Had watched all of New York where he fought turned to ash and rubble by his invading armies, hundreds of thousands died there. Steve Rogers dies, and the others, but the entirety of what had happened had never been known. Thanos left after the snap, disappearing into a portal just as his victory was accomplished, and much of the tale was unknown and left to speculation.

"Had things been different, this world we live in would not be The End but merely a semicolon, a pause. But in this reality, there was no Tony Stark to save us all and this is our world and our future, and now that Thanos and the stones are destroyed, we will move forward and prosper. It was the best I could do. It was the only thing I could do. I had nearly forgotten about Iron Man, in all of that, until I caught something of him during a spell. I had not known until then if he had even lived or died."

She gave him such a look of reproach that he smiled weakly. "I considered leaving him alone. But it occurred to me that it might not be wise to have a man of very great power and intelligence wandering around the ruined world not in his right mind, and maybe full of shame and rage and vengefulness. You see, he was sure to understand that all of this was our fault, for not listening to him and I bent my poor skills to try and find him. I began to see this place, wild and green but the tech advanced, advancing farther than other places. I looked in places like this before I found this one. I think I came the right way."

There was a silence, except for the fire.

"Should I speak to him?" Hope asked in a steady voice.

"No need," said Dr. Strange, the Sorcerer Supreme. "I will." And he said, "Tony."

She looked at the door of the bedroom. It opened and he stood there, thin and tired, his dark eyes full of sleep and bewilderment and pain.

"Stephen," he said. He bowed his head. After a while he looked up and asked, "You already took Iron Man from me. Will you take my name from me, too?"

"Why would I do that?"

"It means only hurt. Hate, pride, anger."

"I'll take those names from you, Tony, but not your own."

"I don't understand," Tony said, "about the others. That they are other. We are all other. We must be. I was wrong." And Stephen understood from this nonsense that Tony blamed not those who had betrayed him but himself for what happened.

The man named Stephen Strange went to him and took his hands which were half stretched out, pleading.

"No, Tony. You had gone. You've come back. But you're tired, Tony, and the way's hard when you go alone. Come home with me."

Tony's head drooped, and Hope saw his mind working and he looked up, not at Stephen Strange but at her, silent by the fire. 

"I have work here," he said. Stephen too looked to her. 

"He does," she said. "He's fixing the computers."

"They show me what I should do," Tony said, "and who I am. They know my name. But they never say it." Stephen nodded, having sensed in his spell that their battle and how Tony had changed had somehow amplified some part of him from genius to something more, something powerful and he had thought, maybe dangerous but now he knew better.

After a while Stephen gently drew the older man to him and held him in his arms. He said something quietly to him and let him go. Tony took a deep breath. 

"I'm no good there, Stephen," he said. "I am, here. If they'll let me do the work." He looked again at Hope and Stephen did also. She looked at them both.

"What say you, Hope?" asked the one with white hair. 

"I'd say if the networks stay good through the winter, the techies will be begging you to stay. Though they may not love you."

"Nobody loves a powerful man," said the Sorcerer Supreme. "Well, Tony! Did I come all this way for you in the dead of winter, and must go back alone?"

"Tell them--tell them I was wrong," Tony said. "Tell them I did wrong. Tell them--" He halted, confused.

"I'll tell them that the changes in a man's life may be beyond my arts I know, even as Sorcerer Supreme." He looked at Hope again. "May he stay here, ma'am? Is that your wish as well as his?"

"He's ten times the use and company to me my brother is," she said. "And a kind true man, as I told you. Sir."

"Very well, then. Tony, my dear companion, teacher, rival, friend, farewell. Hope, brave woman, my honor and thanks to you. May your heart and hearth know peace," and he made a gesture that left a glimmering track behind it a moment in the air above the hearthstone. "Now I'm off to the cow barn," he said and he was.

The door closed. There was silence, except for the fire.

"Come by the fire," she said. Tony came and sat down.

"Was that the Sorcerer Supreme? Truly?"

He nodded.

"The Sorcerer Supreme of the world," she said, "in my cow barn. He should have my bed--"

"He won't," said Tony.

She knew he was right. 

"Your name is beautiful, Tony. I like to know it."

"Your name is beautiful, Hope," he said. "I will speak it when you tell me to."

**Author's Note:**

> 3/25 a reader suggested a few edits and I liked the ideas so I've made a few more adjustments. It made the story even sadder, but truer, I think.
> 
> In Le Guin's fantasy world, everyone has a true name that they keep secret and the name that they give to friends and family and others. That's why the bit with the name at the end, but I didn't want to take it out.
> 
> Please I'm so new at this I could use some feedback comments kudos whatever


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